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Brave men's footsteps, by the editor of 'Men who have risen'.
Brave men's footsteps by the editor of 'Men who have risen' Author:James Hogg Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THOMAS COCHRANE, TENTH EARL OF DUNDONALD. Multum ille etterris jactatus et alto. NOT many years ago, and yet so many in time's quick changes, that the p... more »eriod referred to seems to belong to another age of this world's history, an old gentleman used to be seen, morning after morning, sauntering in the summer days under the trees of Kensington Gardens. So regularly was he there seen, that passers-by came at last to consider him as an institution in those pleasant groves, and asked and learned his name. That name was a name not unfamiliar, a name which the world will not suffer willingly to fall into oblivion. He who bore it was a descendant of that brave race, which shows on its family tree emblazoned, such names as Sidney Smith, Collingwood, and Nelson. He it was whose adventurous hand erected a flag to float along the coasts of France and Spain, and above the hollow harbours of Chili and Brazil. His name was that of one self-condemned and a voluntary exile. The old gentleman walking so quietly amidst the trees of Kensington Gardens was one of England's greatest seamen. His name was Thomas Cochrane, the tenth Earl of Dundonald— 'the Garibaldi of the sea.' The following lines will tell his story ; so much, at least, as may be told in a short space, of the strange story of a life filled with wonderful adventures and most disastrous chances; like Othello's, of moving accidents by flood and field ; of hairbreadth 'scapes; the story of a man of untiring energy, a hero of intrepid daring—of a British sailor. Part of that story Lord Dundonald has himself written, and dedicated to the electors of Westminster, whose generous support afforded him consolation in some of his most bitter hours. He was born, on the I4th of December, 1775, at Annsfield in Lanarkshire. His father was ca...« less